You’re sitting there, at your laptop, about a third of the way through your latest blog post. Suddenly you’re gripped with the thought
“Will they even care about this?”
You start to remember your latest email marketing statistics. Abysmal. You can’t remember how many go on to click the post in the email. The number seems infinitesimally small.
You can’t remember what you were going to write next because now you’re off looking at other coaches or healers’ sites, seeing what they’re writing about. All the while, you’re wondering what to do because it seems so few people seem to be reading your articles.
First, I want to let you know this is completely normal when you’re building your business. And while your starting out there can be a lot of reasons why your email marketing statistics don’t look great. There are things you can definitely do to improve. And yet, you don’t want to get caught up in tweaking your email marketing without first having taken steps to ensure you create content that is really valuable to your ideal clients.
How do you know if you’re clients will find your content valuable?
Feedback Loops
Once you’ve been established for a while, you’ll start to get people commenting on your posts. Or perhaps sending you an email that says “This is so helpful, thank you!” That’s such a great feeling and can give you a real sense of validation. Even more importantly, it gives you data on which topics seem to generate the most engagement and can help you shape your content strategy as you mature in your marketing.
Your Ideal Clients’ Perspective
But what about when you’re starting out, when your list is small and you’re still building an audience? How can you maximize the chance that your content will be seen as valuable?
One thing to do is to write about something they’ll care about.
Ok, I realize that on the surface at least that might not sound all that helpful, right? Kind of like answering a question “How do you make banana muffins?” by saying well, you make banana muffins by making muffins that have bananas in them.
You wanted the recipe, right?
People care about their problems and they want help to solve them. You can offer them that help in the form of perspective, tips, information and practical guidance, your content will become more valuable to them.
A How-To
In marketing and content creation, there is no exact formula (or recipe) for creating valuable content. So in this case, I’m asking you to look into your heart to guide you, to give you insight into creating topics you can write about that your ideal clients will care about.
Here’s how to do that:
1. Get Quiet
As always, tapping into our own heart and inner guidance system requires you to quiet your mind and settle into yourself. So, take a few minutes to breathe deeply and ground into your body.
2. Think of an Ideal Client
Next, close your eyes and picture an ideal client. This could be one person in particular, either a client you’ve worked with in the past or someone you know that you believe would really benefit from your services. It could also be an earlier version of yourself if applicable to your own niche and services.
3. Envision
Imagine a specific scenario your ideal clients often experience. Get really specific in your imagination and visualize how a situation might play out. It’s not necessary, but it’s really helpful to write down the scenario.
For example: If you help women dealing with relationships that are troubling them, imagine your ideal client, maybe it’s at holiday time, when she’s got a lot of pressure on her. She’s in the kitchen, and her partner comes in and announces he needs her to take care of something for him – say, pick up his dry cleaning. She doesn’t want to but then she immediately second guesses herself. She mentally rearranges her schedule and heads out to take care of his errands. But it takes longer than planned, and she comes home already tired and feeling behind. He doesn’t thank her or acknowledge what she did for him. She feels petulant and put out all night.
4. Uncover
Review the scenario you created. What were the dynamics at play there? What were some things your ideal client might have been thinking about or struggling with? Mull this over and then extract some broad based themes.
For example: In our scenario above, I imagine this woman might struggle with:
Saying no when it means putting her own needs or plans in front of someone else’s.
Feeling guilty or feeling that she has to say yes.
Communicating her own needs
Recognizing her own needs after years of not considering them
Wanting to say no but being afraid of the consequences
There’s even more there, but I think you get the idea!
Each of these things that your imagined client might be wrestling with in that scenario can then become a topic that you write about in one of your upcoming articles. They’ll be powerful, because you’ve drawn them from a life-like scenario, and they’ll be relevant. You can even use your imagined scenario in part of the copy as a bonus.
Making your content relevant is a key factor in determining whether your ideal clients find your articles valuable and ultimately whether they come to see you as a trusted source of information and guidance. If you tune into your own heart, use a bit of your imagination and then do a bit of detective work, you can easily come up with topics to write about that will help your clients better connect with your content.
Find four more steps to making your content valuable to your ideal clients in my upcoming free eBook. Sign up to my mailing list to get it when it’s released. You’ll receive my weekly blog posts, along with other tips, information, programs and inspiration. If you no longer find the content useful, you can unsubscribe at any time.